Typically, an entire production process of general electronic products involves several different stages starting from circuitry designing, configuration, error-elimination, testing, and test-production to mass production. During the process of developing each stage, the cost control greatly influences the profit and value of the fabricated products. In a highly competitive market nowadays, besides providing high-quality and multi-functional products to meet the consumers' demands, how to effectively increase the gross profit is also imperative. Since circuitry designing is the primary and the most significant stage in a production process, the cost control of each electronic element chosen and used in a circuitry becomes crucial. Generally, the process of a latter stage in circuitry designing is depicted with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Illustrated in FIGS. 1(A) and 1(B) are a complete circuitry and the corresponding form thereof. As shown in FIG. 1(A), an engineer uses a drawing software to draw and complete the circuitry, the drawing software further provides a selecting function for the engineer to select a number of elements for composing the circuitry via a material-selection form (linked to an element database through the drawing software) displayed on a screen as shown in FIG. 1(B). Thereafter, the engineer chooses necessary and appropriate elements for completing circuitry designing from the given columns on the material-selection form that includes element packaging, properties, factory materials, and specifications, thereby conducting subsequent processes of production accordingly. Then, an internal accounting department calculates the total cost of the elements used for the circuitry based on the unit price of each electronic element chosen by the engineer.
As seen from the above, there is no cost control mechanism used in the foregoing circuitry designing stage. The entire process is simply conducted by an engineer selecting the electronic elements as required according to the information given on the columns of a material selection form, and an accounting department calculating the total cost according to the pricing data of each of the elements chosen by the engineer. In the process, an engineer only chooses the specifications for required elements and is unable to assist in controlling the costs, resulting low product profit and weak competition in the market as a result.
Therefore, how to effectively control the cost of each of the elements used in a circuitry designing stage of a production process to thereby increase product profits and market competition, is a critical issue to solve.